When connectors having a number of contacts are mated, the mating resistance generated between mating contacts in both of the connectors becomes greater. Hence, it is generally difficult to mate the connectors by pushing the connectors by hand. For this reason, several kinds of what are called lever-type connectors, which utilize a toggle for reducing the operational force for mating, have been proposed.
As a conventional lever-type connector of such a kind, for example, the connectors shown in FIG. 13 and FIG. 14 are known. FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional lever-type connector. FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view of a housing for use in the lever-type connector shown in FIG. 13.
A lever-type connector 101 shown in FIG. 13 is configured to be mated with a mating connector 150, and includes a housing 110, a pair of sliders 120, a lever 130, and a wire cover 140.
The housing 110 receives metal contacts (not shown) connected electrical wires (not shown), with the each electrical wire extracted rearward (in an upward direction in FIG. 13) from each of the contacts. In addition, the housing 110 is provided with a pair of upper and lower (in FIG. 13, the upper side denotes upper side of the paper sheet and the lower side denotes far side of the paper sheet) slider receiving slots 111 that open at both of its left and right end surfaces (in FIG. 13, the left side denotes left side and the right side denotes right side). A lever receiving groove 112 that opens at the rear surface of the housing 110 is defined in the housing 110 and at the rear side of the slider receiving slots 111.
Each of the sliders 120 are formed to have a plate shape, and is movably accommodated in the slider receiving slot 111 of the housing 110. The inner surface of each slider 120 is provided with cam grooves 121 into which cam pins 152 arranged at a mating part 151 of the mating connector 150 are inserted, as shown in FIG. 13. Also, the outer surface of each slider 120 is provided with a pin portion 122 that is inserted into an interlocking groove 133, to be described later, arranged at the lever 130.
Additionally, the lever 130 is provided to extend from a pair of arms 132 as shown in FIG. 14, each having a plate shape from both ends of an connector 131. Each arm 132 is provided with a pin opening 134, as shown in FIG. 13. The lever 130 is supported for rotation with respect to the wire cover 140 by making the pin opening 134 fit with a supporting pin 141 arranged at a substantially center in the left-and-right direction of the wire cover 140. Also, each arm 132 is provided with the interlocking groove 133 from its outer circumferential edge toward the pin opening 134. Hereinafter, for each arm 132, the side on which the connector 131 is arranged will be referred to as an end side and the side on which the pin opening 134 is arranged will be referred to as a pivotal end.
Further, the wire cover 140 is attached at the rear side of the housing 110, so as to extract the electrical wire extracted from the housing 110 at one side of the left-and-right direction (in FIG. 13, on the tight side, in FIG. 14, the near side of the paper sheet) of the housing 110.
In order to mate the lever-type connector 101 and the mating connector 150, the lever 130 and the sliders 120 are firstly located at separated positions shown in FIG. 13, so that the mating part 151 of the mating connector 150 is mated from the front side of the lever-type connector 101. Then, the cam pins 152 of the mating connector 150 enter the inlets of the cam grooves 121 arranged at the slider 120, as shown in FIG. 13, so both of the connectors 101 and 150 come to a temporary mating state. Subsequently, when the lever 130 at a separated position is rotated in the direction of arrow X in FIG. 13 to come to the mating position, the interlocking groove 133 arranged at the lever 130 pushes the pin portion 122 of the slider 120. Thus, the slider 120 interlocks with the lever 130 to move from the separated position to the mating position. The operation of the cam grooves 121 and the cam pins 152 causes both of the connectors 101 and 150 to come closer to each other and come to the mating state.
Conversely, when the lever 130 at the mating position is rotated in a direction opposite to the direction of arrow X to come to the separated position, the slider 120 interlocks with the lever 130 to move from the mating position to the separated position. The operation of the cam grooves 121 and the cam pins 152 causes both of the connectors 101 and 150 to be separated from each other.
In this manner, the lever-type connector 101 is configured for closure, having a rotatable lever 130 and a slider 120 that interlocks with the lever 130 and that has cam grooves 121. Thus, the operational force for mating can be reduced considerably.
It should be noted, however, that in order to improve the connection of the lever-type connector shown in FIG. 13, the configuration is employed in some cases such that the rotational center of the lever is shifted to one side of the ends in the left-and-right direction, and that one side of the ends in the left-and-right direction is pushed by the lever. In a case where the above configuration is employed for the lever-type connector 101, the pivotal end of the arm 132 in the lever 130 will protrude, from one side of the ends in the left-and-right direction of the housing 110, at the separated position of the lever 130, in some cases.
In such a case, if the mating connector 150 is mated obliquely from one side of the ends in the left-and-right direction of the housing 110, in other words, if the mating connector 150 is subject to so-called twisting mating, any one of a pair of the arms 132 of the lever 130 enters into the mating connector 150, because the arms 132 are arranged at a given interval in the up-and-down direction at the pivotal end thereof, as shown in FIG. 14. This will damage the mating contact provided at the mating connector 150.
In addition, in response to the need for downsizing the connectors, there is also a need for downsizing the lever-type connector 101 shown in FIG. 13. In particular, in the lever-type connector 101, there is a need for making the width (height) in the up-and-down direction of the wire cover 140 as narrow as the width (height) in the up-and-down direction of the contact accommodating area in the housing 110. As described, there is a need for making narrow the width in the up-and down direction, whereas the external diameters of multiple electrical wires extracted from the housing 110 remain large and unchanged. In this situation, if the width in the up-and-down direction of the wire cover 140 is made narrow and unchanged and the width of the outlet, arranged at the wire cover 140, from which the bundle of the electrical wires is extracted is also made narrow and unchanged, the outer diameter of the bundle of the electrical wires is greater than the width of the outlet in a case where too many electrical wires are extracted. In this case, there is a drawback of making it impossible to bundle the extracted electrical wires. In order to avoid the above drawback, the width (height) in the up-and-down direction of the outlet, for the electrical wires, arranged at the wire cover 140 may be conceivably set greater than the width (height) in the up-and-down direction of the contact accommodating area in the housing 110. However, if only the width of the outlet for the bundle of the electrical wires is made great, this will cause a drawback of making it impossible to integrally form the wire cover 140 molding.